This pasta puttanesca is spaghetti tossed in a homemade tomato sauce that is flavored with olives, capers and herbs. A quick and easy dinner option that tastes like it came straight from your local Italian restaurant!
My family loves Italian food, and I regularly make dishes such as slow cooker bolognese sauce, chicken parmesan, pasta carbonara and this simple yet satisfying spaghetti alla puttanesca.
When I’m looking for a quick and easy dinner, I often turn to pasta recipes such as pasta puttanesca. It uses ingredients that I typically already have on hand, and can be on the table in 30 minutes. How can you go wrong with that?
Table of Contents
Pasta Puttanesca Ingredients
To make this recipe, you will need spaghetti, olive oil, anchovy paste, garlic, red pepper flakes, tomatoes, salt, black pepper, kalamata olives, capers and fresh parsley.
How Do You Make Pasta Puttanesca?
Cook the pasta in a large pot of salted water until it is al dente. While the pasta is cooking, heat the olive oil in a large skillet. Place the anchovy paste, garlic and red pepper flakes in the pan and cook until the ingredients are fragrant. Chop the tomatoes, then add them to the pan along with some salt and pepper. Stir everything together, and bring the sauce to a simmer. Add the olives and capers, then drain the pasta and toss it with the sauce. Add a garnish of parsley, then serve and enjoy.
Tips For The Perfect pasta
- Look for cans of San Marzano tomatoes for this recipe. This variety of tomato is full of flavor and doesn’t contain many seeds, which makes it perfect for sauce making.
- You can use any type of black olive that you like. I typically use Kalamata olives, but a nice Gaeta or Nicoise would also work well. Just be sure to remove the pits before you add the olives to the sauce.
- Salt packed capers have the best flavor and texture, just give them a quick rinse before putting them in the sauce.
- This pasta stays fresh in the fridge for up to 4 days, which makes it great for meal prep.
- I typically serve this dish with garlic knots and an Italian salad for a complete meal.
Quick Tip
If you prefer a spicier pasta, feel free to increase the amount of red pepper flakes.
Recipe FAQs
Puttanesca sauce is made with tomatoes, garlic, chili flakes, olive oil, anchovies, olives and capers. While you may think that anchovies are an odd choice for pasta sauce, do not omit them from the recipe! The anchovies make the sauce more complex in flavor, but the sauce does not taste fishy. In fact, you probably won’t even notice that the anchovy paste is there.
Puttanesca sauce has a similar flavor to marinara sauce, but with the addition of olives and capera. It’s also spicier than a traditional tomato sauce because of the red pepper flakes.
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Flavor Variations
This recipe as written is a fairly classic rendition of this dish, but you can alter the ingredients to suit your tastes.
- Protein: Add grilled chicken breast, garlic butter shrimp or grilled flank steak on top of your pasta.
- Herbs: Feel free to use other herbs instead of the parsley such as oregano or basil.
- Pasta: While this dish is often made with spaghetti, other long pasta will also work such as linguine or angel hair pasta.
- Cheese: Add some freshly grated cheese over the top such as parmesan, romano or even mozzarella.
This pasta dish is loaded with bold flavors, and tastes like it came straight from your local Italian restaurant. This is a must-try for when you need dinner on the table quickly!
More Italian Dishes To Try
Pizza Stuffed Shells
45 mins
Slow Cooker Chicken Cacciatore
4 hrs 15 mins
Bruschetta Chicken
55 mins
Chicken Parmesan Pasta
40 mins
Chicken Pesto Pasta
30 mins
Pasta Puttanesca Video
Love This Recipe?
Please leave a 5-star 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟 rating in the recipe card below & a review in the comments section further down the page.
Pasta Puttanesca
Ingredients
- 12 ounces spaghetti pasta
- 1/4 cup olive oil
- 2 teaspoons anchovy paste
- 2 teaspoons minced garlic
- 1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes or more to taste
- 28 ounce can San Marzano whole tomatoes drained
- salt and pepper to taste
- 1/2 cup kalamata olives pitted and halved
- 3 tablespoons capers
- 2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley
Instructions
- Cook the pasta in salted boiling water according to package directions.
- Heat the oil in a large pan over medium heat. Add the anchovy paste, garlic and red pepper flakes to the pan.
- Cook for 1-2 minutes, stirring constantly.
- Coarsely chop the tomatoes then add them to the pan. Season the tomatoes with salt and pepper to taste.
- Stir to combine the tomatoes and olive oil mixture. Bring to a simmer.
- Cook for 8-10 minutes, stirring occasionally, until tomatoes have broken down and formed a sauce.
- Stir in the olives and capers.
- Drain the pasta and toss with the tomato sauce. Sprinkle with parsley, then serve.
Notes
- Look for cans of San Marzano tomatoes for this recipe. This variety of tomato is full of flavor and doesn’t contain many seeds, which makes it perfect for sauce making.
- You can use any type of black olive that you like. I typically use Kalamata olives, but a nice Gaeta or Nicoise would also work well. Just be sure to remove the pits before you add the olives to the sauce.
- Salt packed capers have the best flavor and texture, just give them a quick rinse before putting them in the sauce.
My daughter makes and does an awesome job.. we love this..
This is the best Puttanesca I’ve ever had! Had it in an Italian restaurant and this recipe is way better. Quick and easy too!!! Highly recommend it.
This is delicious! I am vegan so no anchovy paste. Instead, I used a couple of teaspoons each of the olive and caper brine. Wonderful and very easy!
Absolutely delicious! And so easy.
I want to make this recipe, but none of the stores around here carry anchovy paste. Can I sub fish sauce or something else instead?
You could use a 1-2 finely minced anchovies, or else just omit the anchovy!
I used a little bit of the brine from each as a substitute. It was great!
Hi Sara. I want to thank you for amazing recipe. My family loved it! My 6-year old, an olive hater is now an olive lover! My husband who is not a fan of anything pasta loved the dish that put the leftovers in a container to take to work. It’s the first time that I made pasta that got eaten (almost) completely the time I made it. It was so good!
I doubled the pasta sauce recipe and added a teaspoon of sugar because in my taste the olives were too much, and maybe because I added a bit much, so that’s my fault.
I omitted the red chili flakes because my daughter can’t handle spice. All of us had 2 servings each!
I made this pasta for dinner last night and it’s definitely going to be one of our new go tos! So flavorful and delicious!
This is so much better than eating out!
This was such a simple and flavorful pasta dinner recipe for our family! We served it with a side salad and some garlic bread for a delicious meal!
I love this recipe so much! It reminds me of the puttanesca that I had in Boston while on vacation. So delicious! Thank you!
This came together so quickly and tasted SO GOOD!
Love this recipe. Nice alternative to standard pasta sauce.
Not a fan of capers. Can I leave them out or substitute something else?
It’s fine to omit the capers.